Hey, Gov. Newsom. I’ve been in Dallas with some of the best addiction doctors and researchers in America these last few days. There’s so very much going on here – which we’ll expand on in coming weeks – but we implore you to keep these thoughts at the forefront as California embarks on its plan to spend $6.4 billion helping and housing homeless and mentally ill folks.
What kills most?
We can buy the drug that kills more Americans than any other at the grocery store. Legally. Every day of the week.
While overdose deaths from fentanyl and its sinister cousins have seized the spotlight for years — some 112,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2023 — alcohol-related diseases kill many, many more people — 178,000 Americans every year, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
In California, a record-breaking 11,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2022. But nearly twice that many — 19,335 — die from alcohol-related diseases every year in the Golden State, according to a recent number crunch by the California Department of Public Health.
There are medications that can help treat alcohol use disorder. They’re not fabulous, experts at the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s annual conference said, but they’re a tool in the toolbox that can help address the most widespread and pernicious addiction in America.
“Everything right now is opioids, and it’s great we’re trying to prevent overdoses, but alcohol is not gone. Alcohol causes more related deaths than opioid overdoses,” said Dr. Julio Meza, director of UCLA’s Addiction Medicine Fellowship, who we chatted with before the conference began.
“Before 2020, the main reasons for a liver transplant at UCLA were Hepatitis C, tumors and then alcohol. Now at UCLA, the main reason for a liver transplant is alcohol.”
General practitioners! Family doctors! Talk to your patients about their drinking. More addiction treatment from front-line physicians…
Read the full article here
